


4 Times Sam Drunk Dialled Dean, & One Time Dean Drunk Dialled Sam

by SaltAndBurn (AlyssiaInWonderland)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Humor, Don’t copy to another site, Drunk Dialing, Drunk Sam Winchester, Drunk!Sammy is adorable ok, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, POV Sam Winchester, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 05:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17523020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssiaInWonderland/pseuds/SaltAndBurn
Summary: What it says on the tin. Instances working backwards in time over the Stanford Era, of the bothers and drunk-dialling.Some fluff, some angst, some mixture.





	4 Times Sam Drunk Dialled Dean, & One Time Dean Drunk Dialled Sam

**5. I Can’t Stop This Feeling**

Sam’s feeling warm despite the slight chill in the air. It’s been almost two years, now, and he’s got actual, normal friends who live actual, normal lives. He’s loose and still aching a little from his morning run, and the alcohol in his system after hanging out with his friends has him flushed and smiling. It’s possibly also something to do with the high that comes from getting to spend time with the coolest girl in the world.

He doesn’t even think about it as he dials.

“Hello?” Dean’s voice is gravelly with sleep, but that doesn’t seem very important to Sam. Not compared to what he wants - no,  _ needs _ , to say.

“Dean!” He shouts, happily, then quickly hushes himself, because it’s late. He knows it is, because the stars are up. “Hey, Dean!” His whisper is obnoxiously loud, but he really does mean well.

“You are  _ way _ too happy to talk to at four am, dude.” Dean’s grumpy, which is honestly hilarious, because he clearly hasn’t got the memo that today has been the best day ever.

“Dean, guess what?” Sam barrels on, not giving him time to respond. “I met the coolest girl! She was hot, and really smart, and she has the best hair I’ve ever seen!”   
  
“The best  _ hair _ ? Sammy, you did  _ not _ call me at four a-freaking-m to ramble about some girl’s hair. Who raised you? Have the decency to make it about her boobs. Please. I’m begging you.”

“No, Dean, it’s important! Her hair is really pretty, man. And she called me a cute giant. And her boobs are nice.” Sam sighs, and then gets distracted because he’s tripped over the air somehow. “The air is mean, Dean.” He giggles. “That rhymes! I’m kinda drunk.” He says the last sentence extremely seriously, matter of fact like it’s something he learned in class.

“I’m getting that impression.” Dean snorts with laughter. “Jesus, kid, what did you drink, like, three whole beers?”

“Hey!” Sam protests, and spots a bench. He sits down on it. The world is not very upright. “Dean, the ceiling shouldn’t have trees. Why does it have trees?” He frowns. “Dean, I think I’m lost.”

“Okay, right, big boy. Where you at?” Dean sounds exasperated, but he’s not mad, so Sam figures it’s okay.

“I’m on a bench.” Sam explains, helpfully.

“Any other info? Hate to tell you this, but there are a lot of benches out there.” Sam ponders this for a moment.

“I’m in a park.” He says. “I’m turning into a dragon, too.”   
  
“What?” Dean sounds alarmed, but Sam’s pretty chill about the whole thing.

“I’m breathing smoke!” Sam watches the puffs of cool air he breathes out.

“Man, if you’re high and drunk right now I will end you. Now sit tight, dude. Thank god for GPS.” Sam opens his mouth to reply, but Dean’s cut him off.

He spends a while enjoying the pretty spirals his warm breath creates, but gradually he begins to feel the chill. He remembers his satchel still has half a bottle of tequila in it, so he takes a sip, because he’s fairly sure it will warm him up, and besides that it tastes really good.

A hand deftly grabs the bottle, and he turns.

“Hey!” He glares, points a finger accusingly. “Hey!” He says again, this time happy-confused. “Dean? What are you doing here?”

“Jesus, Sammy.” Dean looms closer to him, and Sam blinks at him, unsure why he seems so concerned. “Okay, not high. Just really fucking drunk. Tequila, Sammy? Seriously?” Sam lets Dean tuck the drink back into his satchel, and leans on his shoulder as he starts walking them somewhere - he hopes it’s home, because he is definitely not in a state to know the right direction.

“Tastes good!” He pouts. Tequila is so not as bad as people make it out to be.

“Yeah, when tequila tastes good, that’s how you know you’re wasted, dude.”

“Mean.” Sam sags against Dean on purpose to annoy him. It’s not like Dean’s actually there. He’s just a figment. Can’t really piss off a figment.

“Support your own heavy ass, you goddamn giant!” Figment-Dean is very like real-Dean who he’d just spoken to on the phone.

“No! I’m having a hard time. Support me, jerk!” Sam glares, and Dean huffs a laugh again.

“Yeah? Pretend I’m your shrink. Tell me what you’re feeling, Samuel!” Dean imitates a doctor. It’s an awful falsetto, but Sam doesn’t really mind it.

“It’s cold, and I had to leave Jess’ party. It’s very unfair. I wanted to kiss her cheek. She - she really looked like she wanted that! Also someone made me put away my tequila.”

“Sounds rough, buddy.” Dean’s grinning, which makes Sam grin too, mostly on autopilot. “Can you get your keys in your door?”   
  
Sam tries four times, and on the fifth Dean lets him in and throws his keys at his head.

“Get to bed. Bitch.”   
  
“Whatever.”

Sam wakes up with a massive hangover, and a message from Dean on his desk written in messy red ink.

“If you call me in the middle of the night to ramble about some chick’s hair again, I’m officially gonna murder you.”

* * *

 

**4\. Just Last The Year**

Sam is obscenely drunk.

Not just regular, drinking-because-it’s-fun drunk. This is grade A, drinking-because-it’s-better-than-feeling drunk. He’d long ago promised himself he’d never drink just because he can’t stand being sober, but there’s a road to hell and it’s paved with people like him.

His friends have tried to make him feel better, but they don’t know. Not really - and he’ll never tell them, either. He wants to keep them safe.

He’s been operating on this principle that things will get better if he just sticks it out for a year. He’s okay, it’s fine, he can just grind through and then suddenly he’ll be a well-adjusted student without a metric fuckton of daddy issues and residual hunter training.

Except it’s been a year; a year to the day.

And it still feels like crap.

His muscle-memory is calling Dean before he even register that’s what he’s doing.

“What.” Dean sounds angry, and Sam flinches, finger poised over the cancel button. But, somehow, he manages to not end the call.

“Hey.” He’s not sure if it’s alcohol or anxiety that’s fucking with him, but something absolutely is because his voice sounds like it’s moving through soup.

“Sammy?” Dean sounds broken. He’s not supposed to sound like that. Not ever.

“Dean.” Sam doesn’t really know what to say to make it better. He probably can’t. He tries anyway. “It’s been one bitch of a year.” He’s not crying. It’s just salty rain.

“I hear you, kiddo.” Dean still sounds shaken, uncertain. It’s something that shouldn’t be allowed. Dean is solid as a rock. If the rock is crumbling, Sam’s utterly screwed.

“Visit me.” Sam’s pretty much composed entirely of impulse right now, but even he wasn’t expecting him to say that. “Fuck it, Dean. Fuck Dad, fuck the arguments, fuck the goddamn sides. You’re my brother, man. I - I miss you.” He closes his eyes, because the world is spinning violently, and he feels incredibly sick.

“Shit. Sammy. I miss you too, you bastard.” Dean hangs up right after, and Sam’s left staring at his phone forlornly, like it holds the answers to his problems.

He hears a car door slam, and someone moves to sit next to him on the steps of his dorm. He doesn’t have to look to know it’s Dean. Doesn’t want to look. If it’s not real, he’s not going to destroy the illusion.

“Normally, you call me a bitch.” Sam’s still not looking at Dean. If he doesn’t look, then it stays suspended, like the cat in that book he read. If he doesn’t look, then this can be real and also not, and it means he’s free, and so is Dean.

“We ain’t normal, Sammy.” Dean’s shoulder is nudging against Sam’s. He can feel the thick leather through his thin shirt. He’s shivering a lot - he needs a new hoodie, but what scholarship kid has the money for that?

“You’re a freaking stalker, you get that, right?” Sam manages a smile. He’s comforted to note that Dean is also ignoring his crying.

“Okay,  _ now _ you’re being a bitch.” Dean sounds like he might be crying too. Before Sam can analyse that particular shock, he feels an arm wrap around his shoulders, warm and solid. He lets his head rest on the shoulder of his probability-conditional brother.

“Why do you even talk to me? You’re still with Dad, you still - Dean, I’m just some freak student now.” He thinks he can feel every cell in his body screaming in protest of the drinks he’s knocked back. “I can’t even hold my fucking liquor right. How’s that for a Winchester.” He can’t help sounding bitter about it. He’s even managed to fuck up getting fucked up. The irony tastes like paint-stripper.

“You’re my brother.” Dean says this like it explains everything. Maybe to him it does. It sort of explains it to Sam, too, if he lets himself actually care. He misses Dean, so much. Even when he’s right there with him.

“Why were you here? Today, I mean.” Sam’s not sure he wants to know.

“Dude. It’s been a year. Of course I’m here.” Sam twists so his forehead is pressed against Dean’s leather jacket, his eyes squeezed firmly shut.

“That’s sappy.” Sam feels his voice being muffled, but doesn’t have the energy or coordination to move to prevent it.

“Give me a break, Sammy. It’s the anniversary of the day my family got ripped in fucking two.” Dean sounds so upset Sam starts to cry again.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, shakily.   
  
“Fuck no. You don’t get to be sorry. I’m the one who gets to be sorry. I’m the one who let this happen. That’s on me.” But Sam doesn’t remember it that way. 

The way Sam remembers it, Dean had tried to play the peacemaker, as always, and hated himself every second of the drive to the coach station, and done it anyway because Sam had asked him to, and because if he hadn’t then Sam would have had to walk there alone with their father’s shouts ringing in his ears.

Dean’s the one Sam remembers trying to stop it from getting so bad - not letting it.

“It’s not your fault, Dean.”   
  
“Well, it sure as hell ain’t yours either, Sammy.”

Sam feels Dean lever him upright, despite the fact he’s got a good few inches on Dean, and he barely registers their stumble up the stairs to his room.

He wakes up alone, and the only evidence of his Schrodinger’s cat brother is a hoodie he remembers Dean wearing once, left on the back of his chair.

* * *

 

**3\. Happy Birthday To Me**

Sam’s brilliant idea to call Dean strikes between drinks five and six.

He actually calls him after drink eight.

“Dean!” He has to shout because the club music is really, really loud. “I’m getting trashed! You gotta be proud of me, right?”

“What the - Sammy? The hell are you - is that  _ club music _ ?” Dean seems weirdly fixated on not understanding the key message Sam wants to convey.

“I’m getting really drunk! It’s my birthday! That’s how this works, right?” He shakes his head, forgetting Dean can’t see him, and stumbles out into the street so he can hear better. “Birthdays are for getting drunk. Everyone says so.”   
  
“What is this, dude? Is drunk dialling me your new habit? You can’t just call any time, man, what if Dad-” Dean still hasn’t got with the celebration program. It’s kinda rude.

“Dean. It’s my birthday. Could you, like, lighten up? As my present?” He glares at the air nearby. “Dad’s a douche. If he gets pissed about you talking to me, tell him it’s my fault. He can’t hit me over here.”   
  
“Jesus, Sammy, you can’t just-” Sam cuts Dean off again.

“Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to-” Sam sings purposely off key. Of course, he’s so drunk he might have managed to sing it right purely by trying to do it wrong.

“You’re such a bratty drunk, you know that?” Dean doesn’t sound quite so pissed off now, which is only right. He does sound amused, and while being laughed at isn’t exactly what he wanted from this conversation, he’ll take it over the tense fear from mentioning their father.

“I’m allowed to be! It’s my-” Sam thinks this whole conversation has been mostly made up of them cutting each other off.

“Birthday. Yeah. I get it. Now get your drunk ass out of the club and to your dorm, capiche?”

“You’re bossy.” Sam hears the dial tone. He considers going back to the club on principle, but he’s actually really tired, and his dorm is nearby.

He meanders home, stopping once to examine a tree, and twice to count the number of cracked bricks on a nearby building.

Somehow, he’s not surprised to see Dean leaning on his door. He ignores his brother, focusing on getting inside and collapsing on his bed.

“What do you want, Dean.” He’s exhausted now, not nearly as high or demanding as earlier. Just grumpy, and hurting, because seeing Dean sucks just as much as it’s awesome. Because he knows it’s temporary, and soon Dean will be back with their father, back to being scared of his calls even if he invited them.

“Got you a present.” Dean laughs at Sam, because the word has him sitting up, eager again. “God, you’re such a little brother.”   
  
“Well, duh!” Sam makes grabby hands at Dean’s rather blurry figure, and snatches the package. It turns out to be a really nice silver-and-blue penknife. “Dean...it’s pretty!” He’s slightly hypnotised by the way the dorm lights play off the metal. “Thanks, man.”   
  
“It’s nothing, kiddo.” Dean ruffles his hair, and darts out of the way of Sam’s clumsy swipe. “Sleep tight.”   
  
Sam hears the door click shut, and in the morning the new penknife is perched on his glass of water. He doesn’t remember balancing it there.

* * *

 

**2\. When Will My Life Begin**

It’s freshers week, and Sam’s drunk, which is par for the course, and lonely, which is a bitch of an expected outcome.

He doesn’t except Dean to actually pick up. No matter what he’d said before.

“Hello?” Sam can practically hear the ‘new phone, who is this’ tone in his brother’s voice, and he has to stifle an inappropriate bout of laughter.

“Hey Dean. New phone, huh?” He doesn’t know how to start talking except to just leap in, go with it, like it’s normal. Like this is just how they are.

“Sam.” It’s a mark of how weird it really is, how not okay they are, that Dean forgets to call him Sammy.

“That is my name.” Sam feels a bit like a jerk after saying that, but it makes Dean snort, so it’s okay.

“What you doing calling me for? Don’t you have civvies to cosy up to and convince you’re normal, or something? You’re meant to be out getting trashed, not phoning up your dropout brother.” Sam is certain Dean thinks he doesn’t sound bitter.

“Dude. They’re not - we’re civvies too. We aren’t in the fucking marines.” Sam can feel the tension rising even through the phone. “Whatever, I didn’t call to bitch, okay.”   
  
“What did you call for, then?” Dean sounds half-confrontational, half-curious, which is a solid fifty percent better than Sam really expected.

“I don’t know, man.” He figures he might as well be honest. “I don’t know how to be one of them - a ‘civvie’, I guess.” He pauses, and Dean prompts him with a hum of interest that sounds genuine enough he thinks it’s worth continuing. “It’s like...I’ve been waiting to go to college for freaking years. I thought - I guess it’s stupid, but I thought that if I just got into Stanford, left, then I’d be fine. I could, like, start living my life. Mine, not Dad’s life, my own. You know?”

“I-” Dean sounds choked up. It’s distinctly bizarre.

“It’s like that song. Where you’ve spent all your life wondering when your life begins. But then when it does begin, it’s fucking terrifying.” Sam isn’t sure if he’s more concerned about Dean knowing how he’s been feeling or knowing he watched a Disney movie.

“Did you just compare yourself to a freaking Disney Princess?” Dean isn’t actually laughing but Sam’s sure it’s a close-run thing.

“Shut up, man. I just bared my soul to you!” He’d punch Dean if he were actually here.

“Dude.” Dean sighs, like he’s summoning up great reserves of strength. ”Look, if you tell anyone I gave you emotional advice, I’ll shoot you.”   
  
“Encouraging.” Sam says, dryly.

“Can it, smartass, I’m trying to be helpful here!” Sam knows the exact facial expression Dean makes when he’s this indignant.   
  
“Sorry.” Sam manages to feel at least a little bit contrite.

“Your life begins when you start living it.”

“Wow. Way to give me a tautology - that’s so useful.” Sam knows he’s being a bitch, but he can’t help it. It’s pretty much compulsory when interacting with a sibling.

“Sammy, shut up!” Dean snaps, and Sam subsides. “So, you’re this long-haired chick - hey, I get why you relate to her now!”   
  
“My hair is fine!” The protest is out of his lips before he can stop it.   
  
“Sam. Quiet.”

“Then don’t be a jerk.” Sam responds, sulkily.

“Yeah, sorry, whatever. So,” Dean continues, valiantly. “You’re this long-haired chick, and you’re trying to live your life. Hunting was your tower. But the thing is, Sammy, you ain’t left the tower yet. Sure, it feels like you have. You’ve...right, you’ve made your decision to go see the floating lights and shit. You’ve...uh...you think that being at Stanford is like being in Corona, and that makes you free. But it don’t. ‘Cause you ain’t left your tower properly.” Dean takes a breath. “She doesn’t really, truly leave ‘til after she accepts she ain’t going back. See, her life doesn’t begin when she leaves for the first time. It begins when she stops planning on coming back to her tower.”

Sam has no clue how to respond. There’s so much implication wrapped up in how Dean just went with the metaphors, and frankly the fact he seems to know the plot to Tangled quite so well throws him for a loop just as much as the way he bluntly called hunting his tower.

The tacit way he’s calling their father a witch makes Sam want to laugh and cry hysterically. Simultaneously.

“All I get from this is that you’re apparently a shittier Pascal.”

“Fuck you, Sammy. I’d make a great Pascal.”

“Whatever you say, man.” Sam smiles, and then he lets the expression fade. “What if I want to come back?”

“You don’t.” Dean sounds so certain. More certain than Sam is himself.

“I don’t?” Sam hates how vulnerable he sounds.

“Nah. You just think you gotta. Because you’re scared you’ll fail as a civvie.” Dean adds on to the sentences hastily, because he can probably feel how uncomfortable Sam is with that truth. “Also because you think you gotta go back to talk to me. And I’m just gonna say it again. You don’t have to come back to hunting, Sammy. You’ll always be my brother. You can always call me. I’ll always pick up. If I don’t, then it’s either because I’m physically unable to, or - or Dad’s there. You hear me?”

“Yeah.” Sam clears his throat. “I hear you.”

“Good.” Sam nods even though Dean can’t see him. “One last order, Sammy.”   
  
“Yeah?”   
  
“Drink some water before bed. Hangovers suck.” Sam blinks, and laughs. He sounds lighter than he’s ever felt.

“Yes, Sir.” He sighs, deeply. “Hey, Dean?”   
  
“What’s up, squirt?” Dean sounds so fond it makes Sam’s eyes prickle with tears.   
  
“Thanks.”

* * *

 

**1\. You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid**

Sam almost doesn’t pick up when Dean calls him.

He’s got his half-unpacked duffel bag, three textbooks, some scholarship papers, hunting paraphernalia he didn’t feel able to part with, and pretty much nothing else to his name except several thousand dollars of impending student debt.

He answers on the last ring, some puckish impulse taking over.

“Hey, this is the phone of Sam Winchester, please leave a message.” He does his best to sound like a recording. He sort of wants to hear Dean’s voice, because he wants some kind of reassurance that Dad hasn’t actually murdered him for driving Sam to the coach station. He also dreads it, dreads interacting with him, because just the thought freezes most of his brain into the kind of panic state where he apparently decides to pretend to be an answering machine.

“Sammy - Sam.” Dean doesn’t sound drunk. He sounds monumentally, phenomenally inebriated. Sam winces. Yeah. He should have expected that. “You didn’t pick up, man. It’s - I didn’t think you would. You kinda left behind a fucked up mess. Don’t blame you for wanting out of that. Of this.” Sam hears a door slam, the change in background noise indicating Dean’s now outside. 

“Hell, I drove you out myself. Dad was freaking pissed at me for it. Stanford, though. You’ll be starting tomorrow. I checked online and everything. I-” Dean pauses, like he’s got lost in his words and needs to find his bearings again. “I wanted to say good luck. First days are weird. So. Good luck. Break a leg. You’ll do great.” Dean sighs, loudly, and Sam holds his breath, waiting to see if he’ll keep talking.

“I know you’ll make it. You’re so goddamn stubborn, you do anything you set your mind to. Not like - no, this ain’t about me.” Dean clears his throat. “I just. I’m proud of you, man. You’re gonna go far, kid, and all that shit. I wanted you to hear that. From someone. ‘Cause you sure as fuck ain’t gonna hear it from Dad. But you should. I been filling in my whole life. Needed to do it one last time.”

Sam can’t control the tiny whimper that escapes him. He’s not crying, he’s just overwhelmed, and having dry eyes feels almost worse.

“Sammy? You there?” Sam feels awful the longer he bites his lip to keep himself silent. Eventually, Dean stops waiting for him to respond.

“Well. You are, you’ll hear me, you ain’t, you’ll get this message. So, uh. Yeah. You can call me. If you want, which, like hell you’ll want to. But if you need me, for anything, and I mean anything. You just pick up your phone and call, and I’ll be there. I love you, Sammy. Ain’t a thing in the world that can stop that. Not a damn thing.” Dean sounds like he’s about to hang up, and Sam can’t take it anymore.

“I love you too, Dean.”

He isn’t sure which of them hangs up first.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this is enjoyable! This has been written entirely in one hit, on pure impulse, when I'm meant to be doing many other things.
> 
> Comments and kudos feed my dark soul and I will love you forever for them!!! <333


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